Yuko Mohri: Voluta

Previous artist-in-residence Yuko Mohri returns to Camden Arts Centre this summer to present a new installation developed especially for Gallery 3.

Mohri orchestrates relations between electromagnetic force-fields, patterns of light moving through water and a reconfigured Yamaha reed organ from 1934 as part of a complex audio-spatial composition in which non-human agents and chance factors determine the score.

Music and sound are central to Mohri’s practice, her involvement with the experimental music scene in Japan has included collaborations with Ryuichi Sakamoto and Otomo Yoshihide. In this new commission, error, improvisation and feedback figure in an acoustic environment that maps shifting relationships between material things and conceptual propositions. Informed by Japanese concepts such as Suki (the state of openness) as well as the renewal of an animistic worldview in the ideas put forward by speculative realism, Mohri’s installation is attuned to the inherent moods or feelings that architectural spaces are imbued with and reveals the interconnectedness of the built environment with natural processes.

The exhibition is punctuated with a number of live collaborative performances, between Mohri and the internationally acclaimed composer, pianist and electronic musician Ryuichi Sakamoto, and composer and musician, Akio Suzuki – a pioneer of experimental sound art. These performances are presented in association with 33:33 as part of MODE JAPAN | LONDON – a programme of music, visual art, performance and film curated by Ryuichi Sakamoto.

Supported by Arts Council Tokyo, the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation, Terumo and the Yuko Mohri Exhibition Circle

Yuko Mohri (b. 1980, Kanagawa, Japan) is an artist whose installations detect invisible and intangible forces such as magnetism, gravity and light. In 2015, Mohri received a grant from the Asian Cultural Council for a residency in New York. She has participated in a number of exhibitions both in Japan and abroad, including the 14th Biennale de Lyon 2017 (France), Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2016 (India) and the Yokohama Triennale 2014. Mohri is the Grand Prix winner of the Nissan Art Award 2015 and is also the recipient of Culture and Future Prize at the 65th Kanagawa Cultural Award in 2016 and the New Artist Award at the 67th Japanese Ministry of Education Award for Fine Arts in 2017.